Help keep Garnet and other Montana Ghost Towns preserved by purchasing our
new liscense plate! Plates can be bought through the DMV. Your $20.00 contribution goes directly towards the restoration and preservation of these unique peices of our history.

There was a time, a hundred years ago, that Garnet was a thriving town, filled with gold miners and their families. Working hard to carve out a community in the heart of the Garnet Mountains. In 1898, somewhere around 1,000 people called Garnet their home.

If you listen closely, when the sun goes down, in Garnet, you can hear the sounds coming from Kelly’s Saloon or the Miners Union Hall that doubled as the town’s dance hall. There were dances, plays, religious services, a boxing match and union meetings in that old Miners Union Hall.

By 1905, the gold was playing out and only 150 people remained. A raging fire in 1912 and hardships on the home front during World War I sent most of the remaining miners, wives and children packing. Garnet slowly slipped into obscurity, despite a brief renewal of mining in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Today, Garnet’s fame lies not in the gold, but in the rich history of the town, the people that lived there, worked there and played there.

As you walk along our paths, looking at these wonderful history filled old cabins, you can imagine in your mind how the families lived, the flowers that grew alongside these cabins, the shouts of children, the mail arriving, the school bell, the horses and buckboards bringing in supplies, and people. Were there hardships? Was their laughter? Who worked at the Wells Hotel? We will show you samples of what it was like, you will experience the feel of a hundred years ago, you will walk away with awe and your camera swinging on your arm filled with pictures of a time gone by.